comparing

Mynde Mayfield from myndemayfield.com wanted me to comment on comparing ourselves to other people. Her twitter handle is @myndemayfield

My short answer about comparing is that it’s ALWAYS a losing game.

So why do it? You’re never going to come out on top, so do yourself a favor and resist the temptation.

It’s human nature to always be checking ourselves. But there is another way. We can practice just allowing ourselves to be.

We can begin to practice letting go of the reference point of “other” to know we exist and are okay.

We compare ourselves to others to either feel superior or to feel like crap.

We like to feel superior so we can fortify against any soft spot we know darn well is there.

We like to feel like crap because there is some weird comfort in our little putrid cocoon of low expectations for ourself, and our victim story that goes round and round and gives us an excuse not to take responsibility for our lives.

If we feel like crap all the time and keep feeding that, we never have to take any risks, and never have to feel the bracing wind of vulnerability, or failure, or *gasp* success!

There are always going to be people doing things better than us, and doing things worse than us. The main thing, from my viewpoint, is to be as genuine as you possibly can in everything you are doing and to be fully present. My teachers have mentioned about a gazillion times to me, that those two things can bring you ALOT of happiness and contentment in life.

SECRET: there’s nowhere to get too. There’s no giant prize for being the best. We can just relax and enjoy the process of expressing ourselves fully and releasing our attachment to the outcome. Things don’t have to be perfect or masterful to be effective. Notice how AFFECTED we are by dogs and children. They certainly don’t know how to write well or market well or get a lot of followers on Twitter. But they are genuine and present and are doing the best they know how. It’s quite beautiful isn’t it?

Trust your own path. A Buddhist teaching goes something like this; Better to walk your own path well than another’s poorly.

Thank you Bindu. I find it increasingly more difficult not to compare myself to the amazing bright stars I see all around me all the time (especially on Twitter). And wanting badly not to lose touch with my okayness in the midst of that.

What you remind me of is how we care for and protect our sore spots (in this case, that I don’t feel like I’m enough) and when I’m willing to be more vulnerable with them, they actually connect me to myself (& others) more deeply.

Also duly noted: the best I have to give, I can give right now, in this moment. i don’t have to wait to be better tomorrow. that perspective sort of just makes comparing irrelevant.

Thank you. I sometimes forget to breath and relax. The anxiety of what might be sometimes looming large. My one teacher told me 80% of something you didn’t know before is more than you knew before. The present time is where I need to be.

This is so what I needed to read right now. I spent the weekend away with children and dogs. And after a couple of weeks of constantly comparing and measuring and caring about things that don’t matter, it was like the reset button in my brain was pressed and all those things just floated away.

Although I did find myself comparing the length of my sled run to that of my siblings, but some how any type of comparing that involves howling with laughter and one after the other of us landed in a ditch seems ok.

As the 1950s beatniks used to say: “Comparisons are odious.” Of course, they had in mind an answer to the question, “What’s your favorite _______?” I think it applies to self-comparisons also, but then again, maybe I’m undiscriminating…

Second of your posts I’ve read. They are becoming addictive. You are quite the precocious young grad student.